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Apple, Samsung, and Sony Face Child Labor Claims (amnestyusa.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Amnesty International has accused Apple, Samsung, Sony, and other tech companies of failing to do basic checks to ensure minerals used in their products are not mined by children. A new report explains how cobalt is harvested from mines by children as young as seven years old. The cobalt then ends up in lithium-ion batteries sold to device-makers throughout the world. The list of companies who use these batteries also includes Daimler, Dell, HP, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Microsoft, Vodafone, Volkswagen, and ZTE. Amnesty International notes that half the world's cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where many mining operations have terrible track records for accidents and concern for workers' welfare. They say, "the vast majority of miners spend long hours every day working with cobalt without the most basic of protective equipment, such as gloves, work clothes or facemasks to protect them from lung or skin disease." According to UNICEF, about 40,000 kids worked in mines across southern DRC in 2014.
Only Fairphone.
well since electric vehicles are 6% of the global demand for lithium, probably not. "Other" batteries such as cellphones, laptops, etc are 23%,
Electric vehicles are the biggest growth area, but other devices are currently the biggest demand.
at least according to financial prospectus, and I always tend to follow the money.
They don't get as big a headline as putting Apple in it.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Hypocrites. Amnesty International workers and members who use an Apple, Samsung or Sony phone or laptop are just as "guilty" as Apple, Samsung or Sony.
Amnesty International is no better than the ambulance chasing lawyer looking for the person/organization with the deepest pockets to exploit rather than going after the truly guilty. In this case Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chinese mineral giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd.
Would not Tesla be the biggest offender.
No. Tesla sources cobalt from North American mines.
Are they not the biggest user of lithium batteries?
No. Several cellphone manufacturers use more lithium batteries than Tesla. Tesla is not even the biggest manufacturer of electric cars.
These are just some Musk dreams about the future, not current reality. They buy batteries from Panasonic, only small fraction of Nevada factory is in production now. Who knows what are their sources. Anyway it tells something about "clean & green" lithium battery cars. Lithium battery production was never clean or green. You may put "powered by child labor" sticker on your car, as it still propels market price for cobalt encouraging these kind of abuses.